How am I supposed to go to work tomorrow and be a functional person when my coworkers don't even know that there were barely any Aaron and Liam interactions after Aaron's redemption and we never even got Aaron's reaction to Liam's death
If Liam wrote Aaron a note in Island Of Shipwrecks why does he suddenly not know anything about using a pencil or how to put things on paper in Island Of Graves
Thinking about the way Aaron was treated by the adults in his life throughout his entire childhood
Justine's manipulation, Eva treating him like a threat to be monitored (which he was to be fair), Gondoleery treating him as beneath her, the scientists seeing him as a mistake they have to fix
Then the way Liam treats him in contrast: canonically feeling fatherly affection towards him, seeing Aaron making the same mistakes he did and feeling sad for him instead of viewing him as a monster, directly acknowledging how young Aaron is, genuinely trying to comfort him and ask what's wrong, the entirety of the scene where Aaron gets his oil press to work ("you've made a wonderful machine, Aaron)
This could definitely be worded better but I'm tired and really just made this to say I wish we had more Aaron and Liam interactions
Oh, where do I even start with Island of Shipwrecks? This is the book that used to catch me off guard with how much I like it. When I reread a couple years ago, I was mostly just excited to get to book six, which I had decided was my favorite book in the series.
But then this book hit me like a truck. Or a newly repaired Quillitary vehicle.
Reading book six makes me happy. Reading book five hurts, but in a good way.
Anyways, while McMann started sowing the seeds of a potential Aaron redemption arc in book four, a first time reader might not catch them. This is the book where a first time reader is supposed to, even subconsciously, begin to think that an Aaron redemption arc feasible.
And a lot of that is through Liam. Which means that it's time for my promised Liam rant.
Tangent Part Two: Liam Healy
To talk about Liam and the perspective he offers on Aaron, we have to go back in time a bit to books two and three, where he was first introduced. He is introduced as one of Aaron's Restorers, who actually gets quite a bit of focus compared to the others at that time, and goes on to be in charge of holding Claire captive while Artime is gone. There's quite a bit of tension there partially because Claire knew him when they were kids but also because we see pretty early on that Liam isn't entirely comfortable with what he's doing.
"He [Liam] didn't even know that man now. The old Liam was obedient to Quill's high priest. He didn't dream. He didn't express emotion. He followed the law and never had an original thought."
Oh, early books Liam. I really do love this pathetic man, blindly taking orders from a spoiled fourteen-year-old. There's a part of him that knows what he's doing is wrong. But he doesn't know what else to do. He's spent his whole life doing what he's told and believing in what Quill teaches. It's honestly worked for him. He's Wanted. He's successful. So why isn't he happy? Why can't he just kill Claire and be done with it all?
"And even when he saw Claire, and knew she was alive, he still did those horrible things to her because the high priest had more control over him than his own conscience."
Deep down, he has morals. Eva sees that when she tests him. She knows that, given a bit more time, he'll come over to her side. To Artime's side. Because he knows that what he's doing is wrong, there's a chance for him. Because he's not willing to kill the woman who was the girl he liked. Because there's something about seeing people fight back that makes him think that it's actually possible. And getting sent to the Ancients' Sector is just the push he needed to get him to take action.
"How he wished he could take it all back. How he regretted the man he had become. How he longed to go back in time and live his life the right way, even if it meant he'd be put to death for it. Anything would be better than living with this torment.
But he had done all of those things, and he had made those mistakes. There was no one else to blame for his bad decisions."
Then we get Liam's reintroduction in book four. The Liam we see in that book is a changed person, but with enough hints of who he used to be to make his character development believable (that's a good sign for what's in store for Aaron). Liam is just so pathetic and awkward. I love him. McMann does such a good job of immediately establishing him as sympathetic in this book. Any anger we feel towards him wanes away as we see him shaking and shaking after Eva springs him from the Ancients Sector. We see him feeling legitimately bad for what he had done and refusing to be a part of it any longer. We see him acknowledge that he doesn't deserve Claire's forgiveness and knowing that it's not his place to ask Eva how Claire is doing. Liam's also deceptively smart. He had to have been, for him to have been made a Wanted. He's able to intuit pieces of Eva's plan and figure out what's going on even without her telling him.
Which will come in useful now that Eva's dead.
"'My name is Liam Healy,' he said as another hammer hit. Bits of rubble pattered on his back, and he lifted his shoulders to keep stones from slipping down his shirt collar. 'And I am not with them.'"
Liam is in over his head with Eva gone and he's not sure what to do. But he knows that he needs to try and step up. I love the scene where he first goes to Artime and stands on the border literally collecting dust. He needs to be beat up a bit before forgiveness, from both the other characters and the reader, seems plausible. I also love his line: "And I am not with them" because it's him essentially saying the new Artimean motto. He just stumbles into it. Additionally, I like that Claire doesn't forgive him. She is under no obligation to, and Liam is aware of it. He asks to see her, but respects it when she says no. Claire is not made out to be wrong for not forgiving him, and that's something that's really important.
"How did they get to be Unwanted if they were so smart? he wondered.
And then it dawned on him. One more crack in Quill's philosophy. Eva could do magic. She was creative and intelligent. Sean and Meghan were too. And Claire, of course. . .Justine's words haunted him. 'The strong intelligent Wanteds go to university. The creative Unwanteds are sent to their deaths.' Not even Justine herself had said that the creative children were unintelligent. It was just something the Wanteds had assumed. Now, thinking about it, it didn't seem very intelligent of the Wanteds to assume such a thing at all. What a land of fools."
I also like how the idea that Unwanteds are actually quite smart is reinforced through both Liam's POV and Aaron's POV. We see Liam come to the realization that being stupid was never a qualification for being Unwanted. We see him realize just how stupid Wanteds are for ever thinking that Unwanteds were stupid. And then we later see Aaron thinking about how stupid the Unwanteds are. And how he could never be one of them, oh no (I'll get to that later). It's a fun point in the books' overall message of the importance of creativity and self-expression.
And on the topic of Liam and Aaron. . .
"Ugh. Poor, stupid Aaron. Making all the mistakes Liam did, and more, for the sake of an errant goal."
The real interesting thing about Liam and Aaron's dynamic in this book is that Liam gives us an adult, outside perspective on Aaron that comes with sympathy, which isn't something we've seen. Through Liam, McMann explicitly states that Aaron is a scared child, unsure of where he belongs. That's not something that Aaron himself is willing to acknowledge, nor that Eva or Alex are even aware of. Liam's perspective of having made many of the same mistakes Aaron has is what gives both him and us that clarity. Through Liam, we start to see Aaron as someone who needs help and support, instead of someone to be brought down by any means necessary. There's still a power differential between them, but Liam is able to step up and care for Aaron in a way that no one else has.
"He [Aaron] walked carefully from piece to piece, all the way down to where the sea lapped at them. Liam followed close behind.
'It has a different sound to it,' Aaron said after a while. 'Doesn't it?'
'Oh, yes,' Liam said, though he didn't have a clue what Aaron meant.
'Not disturbing,' Aaron said.
'No, not at all. Peaceful, even.'
Aaron liked that. 'Peaceful.'"
The Unwanteds series as a whole is actually pretty good at acknowledging how young its main characters are. We see this quite frequently on Alex's side of things, through moments like Copper telling Henry that his mom (who's dead) will patch him up later or how 90% of Alex's actions can be explained by the fact that he's a traumatized teenager. But on Aaron's side, up until this book, it's been pretty easy to forget that he's the same age as Alex, even though they're identical twins. His actions are very childish, but that's often attributed by the characters around him to him being a terrible person rather than, you know, a literal child. But finally, finally in this book we get a sympathetic adult view of Aaron who does see him as a child. Like in the scene where Liam and Aaron are down by the sea shore. There's something very gently and paternal about Liam in that scene. The way he's gently coaxing Aaron through his fears. Scenes like these help start the work of reframing how we view Aaron.
Liam's character arc also plays a role in building up the readers' faith in McMann's ability to write a compelling redemption arc. This book is pretty clearly setting up Aaron for a redemption arc and that's going to be a hard sell for first time readers. I'll talk more about why the fact that Aaron's redemption arc worked is truly incredible later on, but, for now, we really just need to understand that a first time reader, especially a first time reader in the series' target age range (which, according to Amazon is ages 9-13), is really going to hate Aaron. On a first read, he's a character that is both hate-able and fun to hate. It's hard work to convince someone that a character that much fun to hate is going to be even more fun to love. But McMann has an advantage here because she has written redemption arcs in this series before Aaron's. We saw just the end of Mr. Today's arc, the time decades post redemption where we know he's a good person and is solid in his identity, so we know that she can write the post-redemption period well. We also see Liam pre-redemption, at the beginning of his redemption arc, and after it, so we know that McMann can write those portions. But that mid-redemption point isn't really something we've seen from her. Even so, because of these other characters, we will give her a chance to see if she can pull it off. Which was largely my mindset when I was first reading this book and heading into book six.
